3 July 2011

Princely Wedding in Monaco 1 and 2 July 2011

HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco married Charlène Lynette Wittstock, daughter of Michael Wittstock and his wife Lynette, née Humberstone, in a civil ceremony in the Throne Room at the Prince's Palace on Friday 1 July 2011. The ceremony was officiated by Mr. Philippe Narmino, President of the Council of State and the Sovereign Family's civil registrar.

Following the ceremony, the newly-wed couple greeted the people from the balcony of the Hall of Mirrors.

The religious wedding took place in the Main Courtyard of the Prince's Palace on Saturday 2 July 2011. The Archbishop of Monaco, Bernard Barsi, celebrated the mass. A most beautiful ceremony attended by representatives of almost all the royal families of Europe as well an impressive number of celebrities.

I will come back to the list soon, but would first like to say how impressed I was by how everything was carried out and the excellent service the information office at the Palace has provided. Even the order of presedence followed seemed to make sense, as opposed to the (also wonderful) British Royal Wedding in April this year. I watched parts of the ceremony on Swedish and Norwegian TV. I started with Swedish TV4, but when it took a commercial break, I switched to the Norwegian channel NRK1. On the latter you got the ceremonial program subtitled, which made all the difference, I would say. The Swedish commentators talked too much as well.

After the wedding, the princely couple (funnily enough the Official Wedding Website says "the royal couple") left the Palace for Sainte Dévote's Church so that the Princess could lay down her wedding bouquet. I only saw parts of this on TV before I had to move on to other matters.

The official dinner and the ball took place in the Opera Garnier and the Casino Terraces, concluded by a firework display at midnight.

Shortly before the wedding weekend, the Princely Court published two guest lists with lots of biographical details - "Biographical Information of the Heads of State and other Official Personalities present at the Religious Wedding Ceremony July 2nd 2011" (pdf) and "Biographical Information of a Selection of Private Guests present at the Religious Wedding Ceremony July 2nd 2011" (pdf).

Besides the bride and groom, HRH The Princess of Hanover (Princess Caroline), her children Andrea, Pierre and Charlotte Casiraghi as well as HRH Princess Alexandra of Hanover and also Princess Stephanie of Monaco and her children Louis Ducruet, Pauline Ducruet and Camille Gottlieb attended the wedding, as well as members of the late Princess Antoinette's family. Princess Caroline's husband Prince Ernst August was - quite understandably - not present, but his two sons Ernst August and Christian from his former marriage, were present. Members of Prince Albert's US American family was of course present, including his best man and cousin Chris Le Vine, and also members of the Wittstock family.

Here are the guest lists, with some additional comments by me (I cannot guarantee that everyone mentioned actually attended, as I was not able to follow the whole broadcast, and I would not be able to recognize everyone either - with a few exceptions I have followed the order given by the court):

Heads of state, in Order of Protocol, with spouses

HE Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the French Republic (and HE Co-Prince of Andorra as well, but he did not attend in that capacity)

HM King Carl XVI Gustaf and HM Queen Silvia of Sweden

(HM King Juan Carlos of Spain (no, he didn't attend, but the court obviously didn't update the list))

HM King Albert and Queen Paola of the Belgians

HM King Letsie III of Lesotho

HE Mr. Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, President of Iceland

HE Ms. Mary McAleese, President of Ireland (Prince Albert paid the Republic of Ireland an official visit not a long time ago and he has Irish roots through his mother, the late Princess Grace)

HRH Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana of Thailand (granddaughter of King Bhumibol)

HRH Prince Henri of Orléans, Count of Paris (one of the 3 pretenders to the French throne)

HRH Margrave Maximilian and HRH Margravine Valerie of Baden

HH Prince Aga Khan IV, Imam of the Shia Imami Nizari Ismaili Muslims

HRH Prince Vittorio Emanuele (Duke of Savoy, Prince of Naples) and HRH Princess Marina of Italy (the Prince of Naples is the son of the last King of Italy, Umberto II, but his claim of the former throne of Italy is disputed)

HIM Empress Farah Pahlavi of Iran

HSH Princess Virginia of Fürstenberg

HRH Prince Leopold and HRH Princess Ursula of Bavaria

HRH Duarte Pio and HRH Isabel of Portugal, Duke and Duchess of Braganza

Many of these friends might have attended with their partners, but for the most part they are not mentioned in the guest list. There was no representation from the Imperial Family of Japan, the Royal Family of Spain and the Royal Family of Romania.

Updated on Wednesday 6 July 2011 at 23.00 (spelling of one name corrected), last time on Tuesday 2 August 2011 at 13.30 (see comments section).

3 comments:

Just a few corrections:- Princess Stéphanie's son goes by the name Louis Ducruet (however, Paul is among his other names).- The name of Princess Stéphanie's youngest daughter is Camille, not Camilla.- "HRH Princess Astrid and HRH Prince Lorenz of Austria-Este" is certainly not a correct title - it should be either "HRH Princess Astrid and HRH Prince Lorenz of Belgium" or "HI&RH Archduke Lorenz and HI&RH Archduchess Astrid of Austria-Este", but not a mix of the Belgian and Habsburg titles.

This blog is written by Dag T. Hoelseth, a Norwegian historian specialising in royal history.
I have a Cand.philol. degree in history from the University of Oslo and graduated in 1997 with the dissertation Det nasjonale kongedømme. Det norske monarkiet 1905-1910, which dealt with the royal election in Norway 1905 and how the new dynasty "became Norwegian".
I am the author of Historisk utredning om Kongehuset, dets apanasjer og disponible statseiendommer, which was published on behalf of the Palace Committee in 2001. The report focused among others on the history of the Norwegian civil list from 1905 to the 1970s as well as the properties the king of Norway has to his disposal.
I have made contributions to several antologies and also written articles for various publications. More often I have operated "behind the scene", consulting newspapers etc. with background information.
Among my other interests are genealogy, Norwegian-American emigration history, US presidential history, traveling, football and ice hockey.